When a Crisis Becomes an Opportunity

The Role of Replications in Making Better Theories

Dados Bibliográficos

ID8396152
AutoresJane Suilin Lavelle (0000-0003-4409-0864, University of Edinburgh, autor correspondente)
Ano2022
Volume73
Fascículo4
Páginas965-986
Data de publicação2022-12-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoThe British Journal for the Philosophy of Science (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0007-0882 • E-ISSN: 1464-3537
EditoraUniversity of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1086/714812
OpenAlexW3021068534
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas3
Referências citadas62

While it is widely acknowledged that psychology is in the throes of a replication ‘crisis’, relatively little attention has been paid to the role theory plays in our evaluation of replications as ‘failed’ or ‘successful’. This paper applies well-known arguments in philosophy of science about the interplay between theory and experiment to a contemporary case study of infants’ understanding of false belief (Onishi and Baillargeon [2005]), and attempts to replicate it. It argues that the lack of consensus about over-arching theories informing both the concepts under study and the methodologies used to track them means that researchers disagree over which experiments constitute replications of the original. The second part of the paper places this specific debate within a broader discussion of the replication crisis as a crisis of ‘theory’, developing work by Muthukrishna and Henrich ([2018]) and Bird ([2018]). Bird argues that the lack of agreed over-arching theories in psychology means that a high rate of replication failure is to be expected; this paper agrees with his diagnosis but challenges his proposal that more replication will resolve the problem

Economics · Epistemology · Positive economics · Replicate · Replication (statistics · Sociology · Child and Animal Learning Development · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics · Philosophy · Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment